 | This year's Christmas card was inspired by a woodcut by Lyonel Feininger. So, a word about him. When I was about seventeen, I saw a slide of a Feininger painting in an art class, and for some reason it completely knocked my socks off. This was the painting:  |
| Well, then, for the next ten years or so, I became obsessed with Feininger's architecturally-inspired landscape paintings. One of my own earliest paintings was an attempt to copy his work.  | I even wrote about Feininger in my comics. Here is a page from The Drawing Book that talks about people who changed their names (a subject much on my mind in about 2000).  And here is a bit from 2003's "Planet Waves", published in Adhouse Books' amazing "Project: Telstar". |
But now here's the funny part. In 2006 there was a big art show called "Masters of American Comics" which included Feininger as one of the, well, masters of American comics. I should mention that he drew comics, like these ones about the "Kin-der-Kids." But I didn't really think they were a big deal, or that anyone else much cared. (I'd never met anyone in Canada who'd even heard of Feininger, all those times I raved about his paintings.) Well, so it turns out he's a famous comics guy, too. Who knew! Meanwhile, those North Sea landscapes are still the paintings I like better than any others. Merry Christmas.
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The next Christmas card is from 1999... keep on going!
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